Film and Music Adaptations
The stories have inspired at least three feature films. The first and best known is Walt Disney's Song of the South, released in 1946. The film was a combination of live action and animation. Disney hired vaudeville and radio actor James Baskett to portray Remus, saying: "We want to see 'Uncle Remus' and not some actor whose personality is already known to them through other screen roles." Baskett's appearance, a large African-American man with a round face, contrasts with the appearance of Uncle Remus in earlier book illustrations by Frederick S. Church, A. B. Frost, and E. W. Kemble. Ralph Bakshi's 1975 film Coonskin is a satire of the Disney film that adapts the Uncle Remus stories to a contemporary Harlem setting. The Adventures of Brer Rabbit is a 2006 direct-to video production which has hip-hop influences.
Loudon Wainwright III wrote and recorded the song "Black Uncle Remus" in 1972. Frank Zappa also recorded a song called "Uncle Remus" which appears on the album Apostrophe (') (1974). The Zappa song was also recorded by band mate George Duke on his album "The Aura Will Prevail".
The Uncle Remus tales are also the basis for the 1984 Van Dyke Parks album Jump.
The Boondocks, a comic strip and animated show, adopted the likeness of Uncle Remus in creating the character Uncle Ruckus.
Don Williams refers to "Uncle Remus" putting him to bed in the song Good Ole Boys Like Me.
Read more about this topic: Uncle Remus
Famous quotes containing the words film and, film and/or music:
“The obvious parallels between Star Wars and The Wizard of Oz have frequently been noted: in both there is the orphan hero who is raised on a farm by an aunt and uncle and yearns to escape to adventure. Obi-wan Kenobi resembles the Wizard; the loyal, plucky little robot R2D2 is Toto; C3PO is the Tin Man; and Chewbacca is the Cowardly Lion. Darth Vader replaces the Wicked Witch: this is a patriarchy rather than a matriarchy.”
—Andrew Gordon, U.S. educator, critic. “The Inescapable Family in American Science Fiction and Fantasy Films,” Journal of Popular Film and Television (Summer 1992)
“This film is apparently meaningless, but if it has any meaning it is doubtless objectionable.”
—British Board Of Film Censors. Quoted in Halliwell’s Filmgoer’s Companion (1984)
“Have you ever been up in your plane at night, alone, somewhere, 20,000 feet above the ocean?... Did you ever hear music up there?... It’s the music a man’s spirit sings to his heart, when the earth’s far away and there isn’t any more fear. It’s the high, fine, beautiful sound of an earth-bound creature who grew wings and flew up high and looked straight into the face of the future. And caught, just for an instant, the unbelievable vision of a free man in a free world.”
—Dalton Trumbo (1905–1976)